The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) on Oct. 1 sentenced Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, a member of parliament for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to death for war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Chowdhury is the first member of the BNP to stand trial for war crimes under the tribunal set up by the Awami League-led government in 2010. He was found guilty on nine of 23 charges stemming from accusations regarding his role in war crimes committed by pro-Pakistan militias. Chowdhury is expected to appeal his conviction in the Supreme Court.

A military judge on Oct. 2 refused to suspend the pretrial hearings in a case against five Guantánamo Bay prisoners related to the 9-11 terrorist attack. Army Col. James Pohl reasoned that the measures taken to respond to the defendants' concerns were adequate to continue the hearings. The defense team claimed that the government's computer network was not secure. The lawyers alleged that confidential data, e-mails and private research went missing or were erroneously sent to the prosecution. The US Department of Defense stated that it will address the concerns. The next pretrial hearing is set for October 22 while no trial date is set.

A judge in Quito on Oct. 1 ordered the house arrest of three army and police officers in Ecuador's first trial involving alleged crimes against humanity. They are part of a group of 10 former senior officers accused of abducting and torturing three members of an illegal opposition group, the Eloy Alfaro Popular Armed Forces, in 1985. Activists converged on the capital for the opening day of the landmark trial. The events took place under the conservative government of late Leon Febres Cordero, who was elected to a four-year term in 1984. Judge Lucy Blacio turned down prosecutors' request to have one elderly army general detained, on the ground that he is seriously ill; however, he is barred from leaving the country. The three victims—Susana Cajas, Javier Jarrin and Luis Vaca—are to testify in the case next week. The charges were brought by a special Truth Commission created to address rights abuses. (Jurist, Oct. 2; BBC News, AFP via Milenio, Oct. 1)

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) on Sept. 30 filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) accusing the US government of committing human rights violations in Vieques island, part of Puerto Rico. The petition was filed on behalf of 10 Vieques residents who have cancer or have relatives suffering from cancer. Vieques was used as a military exercise range for the US Navy for 60 years until 2003, four years after a security guard was accidentally killed during a bombing practice. The NLG claimed that the hazards created during those years were never communicated to the island's citizens, who ultimately suffered chronic illness. Moreover, as a result of the Navy's military practices, the island became polluted with toxic residue adversely affecting the civilian population. Thus, the lawyers accused the US government of violating several articles of the American Declaration. If the Commission finds violations were committed, it will make a list of binding recommendations. The lawyer filing the petition stated that the petition is not seeking specific reparations but is asking for changes that would mitigate the existing damages, such as improved health care and transportation to Puerto Rico.

In a decision dated Sept. 23 the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Tribunal (TC) in effect took away the citizenship of all people born in the country to out-of-status parents since June 20, 1929. The court noted that the authorities are currently studying birth certificates of more than 16,000 people and have refused to issue identity documents to another 40,000; the justices gave electoral authorities one year to determine which people would be deprived of their citizenship. Since most undocumented immigrants in the Dominican Republic are Haitians, the ruling mainly affects Dominicans of Haitian descent. The TC is the highest court for constitutional issues, and the decision—TC/0168/13, in the case of the Haitian-descended Juliana Deguis Pierre—cannot be appealed.

The Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a legal advocacy group with offices in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and the US, has requested a hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) about the case of Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, who was ordered into preventive detention on Sept. 20. CEJIL director Marcia Aguiluz said the group has also raised the case with the United Nations. Cáceres, an indigenous Lenca, is the general coordinator of the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). The government has charged her with damaging property in connection with her support of protests by indigenous Lenca communities against the construction of the Agua Zarca dam on and near their territory. Aguiluz said that the "criminalization of Berta Cáceres" is an "example of a new manner of persecution, since it's the use of the judicial apparatus to keep rights defenders from carrying out their work." (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Sept. 26, from EFE)

The giant Buenavista del Cobre copper mine in Cananea, near the US border in the northwestern state of Sonora, is in full operation again, a little more than three years after a police assault ended a 2007-2010 strike over health and safety conditions by Section 65 of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM, "Los Mineros"). The mine produced earnings of $288.69 million for its owner, Grupo México (GM), in the second quarter of this year, according to an article in the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada. But the town itself hasn't prospered. The article reports that the past 10 years have brought an increase in "organized crime, unemployment, shortages of drinkable water, a growing incidence of different types of cancer and acute respiratory diseases, ecological deterioration, alcoholism, and, because of a large transient population, problems with housing and urban infrastructure."

Moscow's state broadcaster Russia Today on Sept. 27 runs an interview with Bolivia's President Evo Morales from the network's Spanish-language affiliate, Actualidad, in which he called for Barack Obama to be tried for crimes against humanity and accused him of waging wars to secure US control of the world's energy resources. "[T]hey arranged for the president to be killed, and they usurped Libya's oil," he said—but it was clear his comments really concerned Syria. "Now they are funding the rebels that fight against presidents who don't support capitalism or imperialism," Morales told Actualidad's extremely problematic Eva Golinger. "And where a coup d'état is impossible, they seek to divide the people in order to weaken the nation—a provocation designed to trigger an intervention by peacekeeping forces, NATO, the UN Security Council. But the intervention itself is meant to get hold of oil resources and gain geopolitical control, rather than enforce respect for human rights."